Each year, Pacifica Senior Living recognizes World Osteoporosis Day on October 20th. World Osteoporosis Day brings awareness to the benefits of good bone health, inspiring individuals living with osteoporosis to educate others by sharing their real life stories.
Aquatic exercise is a fun way for our senior residents to get active, offering many physical benefits. Many Pacifica Senior Living communities offer pools for residents to enjoy at their leisure, making it easy to partake in aquatic exercise while calling our residences home.
As a person ages, he or she may decide to enjoy aquatic exercise as an alternative to lifting weights for building lean muscle, or a less intense alternative to cardio exercises like running. Below, we’ll discuss some of our experts’ top reasons residents may consider including aquatic exercise as part of their daily routine.
Feeling thirsty? According to a study by UCLA, as many as 40% of older adults are chronically dehydrated. Dehydration is a dangerous and often overlooked condition among seniors, especially among those living with memory-related conditions. As we get older, our bodies change, and we become more prone to dehydration -- factors like reduced body water content and increased fluid loss mean we need to increase our intake of water to be healthy.
After months of diligent efforts to protect our family of residents and essential workers, we are thrilled to announce that our vaccination effort in communities across the country has both started well and continues to go well as we work toward 100% vaccination for our residents and staff at Pacifica Senior Living.
Since December, when we were one of the first senior living companies to procure the vaccine under the Phase I vaccination process, we have been able to provide the vaccines to the majority of our residents and team members, and are quickly approaching every community.Pacifica Senior Living is excited that all of our senior living communities have COVID-19 vaccination dates in place. Our vaccination clinics for both residents and staff are well underway with 99% of all communities already receiving their first dose, and several communities have already had their second vaccine dose administered. Not only does the vaccine protect each person that receives it, but it protects the community as well. As we look forward to the end of this long and difficult time, we are thankful to so many who have demonstrated both determination and perseverance in ensuring all our residents and employees have the opportunity to receive the vaccine.
While we continue to see our residents and staff receive the vaccine, we remain ever-mindful of our goal to continue to promote the well-being of our communities by up-to-date health and safety protocols. Our mission is to provide compassionate, personalized care services with dignity and respect, and it is our chief focus while participating in these clinics over the next weeks and months. We look forward to sharing more updates with you as we walk through this new and exciting time!
If you’d like to know more about Pacifica Senior Living, we invite you to visit any of our communities across the nation, and we look forward to an opportunity to welcome you to the Pacifica Family.
Most people love animals. Cats, dogs, birds, fish, guinea pigs, even a lizard or two—we all love to have our friends from the animal kingdom involved in our lives. And as much as we love to have pets around us in all other stages of life, it’s just as important that we are able to maintain our status as pet owners even as we enter those retirement years and select a senior community.
America is getting older every day. While that may sound a bit obvious, it’s true in a way you probably don’t expect. As the Baby Boomer generation—one of the largest in American history—enters their golden years, they represent the largest segment of population boom in the country between now and 2030 (and possibly beyond). One of the unfortunate challenges that often arises as this segment of the population gets older is ageism.
Recently, a research team performed a study on life expectancy for people split into two groups: Active and Inactive. They asked these people—over 650,000 of them—to document how they spend their leisure time over the course of a few months, while also asking them to chart their overall weight and whether or not they felt they slept well the night before.
The COVID-19 vaccines are here. The first shipment of the Pfizer-produced vaccine arrived at the end of November and was approved by the FDA last Friday, so people can finally begin the process of fully protecting themselves from the virus. The Moderna vaccine should also be approved later this week, which means more doses can be distributed and many more people can be vaccinated. Both vaccines are notably effective in preventing illness due to the coronavirus, and both have been tested in adults age 65 and older, who had an overwhelmingly positive immune response to them. This is truly fantastic news for a world weary of a virus that has impacted our lives more than we could have ever imagined.
As the vaccines begins making their way out into the world, we are thrilled to announce that residents in Pacifica Senior Living communities will not have to wait long for them as we are a part of the federal governments Operation Warp Speed Phase I distribution. Basically, the entire populace has been divided in to groups who will get these vaccines at different times based on exposure, risk, and chronic illnesses. Healthcare workers and seniors in assisted living and skilled nursing communities fall into that first tier, which means we’ll have the opportunity to get the vaccines very soon.
So far, early results show that Pfizer's vaccine has an overall effectiveness of 95% and of 94% in people 65 and older, while Moderna's overall effectiveness is 94%, with 87% in preventing moderate disease in older adults. This tells us how well things will go once the vaccines are being given to people on a wide scale. Additionally, the noted side effects of the vaccines are minimal, which, when taken with the extremely high effectiveness of the vaccines tthemselves really does paint a rosy picture for how things are going to turn the corner and improve as we head into 2021, and then into the Spring and beyond.
These companies have said about 40 million doses of their vaccines should be available this year, enough to fully vaccinate about 20 million people, as each vaccine requires two doses. After that, 50 million doses will be available in January, followed by 60 million doses in both February and March. This is enough vaccine for another 80-85 million people and is more than enough to vaccinate America’s seniors and work our way to containing and eventually defeating COVID-19.
At Pacifica, we are eagerly awaiting the arrival of the COVID-19 vaccines, and it appears we are now just weeks away—and maybe less—from being able to provide our residents and their families with the safety and security they are looking for as we all work toward getting our lives back to normal. We are proud of our placement as part of the Phase I vaccine distribution, as we are of the efforts we have already taken in helping to keep our communities safe and our residents happy during this past year. We want to thank everyone who is a part of the Pacifica Family—residents, team members, and family members alike—for all they’ve done in working toward our common goal.
Please keep an eye out for further updates regarding the COVID-19 vaccines, and know that as members of the Pacifica Family, we are all in this together.
People love puzzles. We love games and activities that challenge the mind and force oneself to think upside down, backwards, and around corners because of the challenge and the sense of victory solving a puzzle provides. There are few feelings sweeter than finally putting the last piece into place and seeing the solution you’ve spent minutes, hours, or even days working toward. But puzzles and brain teasers and games are more than just a fun daily activity, they are valuable way to help keep the brain active and healthy as seniors age, and help stave off some of the memory-loss conditions that can crop up as we enter and move through our golden years.